Billionaire investor Mark Cuban criticized Opensea's decision to make royalty fees optional in the NFT marketplace.

"Not collecting and paying royalties on NFT sales was a HUGE mistake by Opensea," Cuban wrote on social media. "This reduces trust in the platform and harms the industry. And I say this as an Opensea investor."

In response to someone who supports eliminating NFT royalties, Cuban said "buyers know what the royalties are before they buy them. Creators can set the royalties to zero. They are part of the smart contract that mints the NFT. This is not a smart decision. This is an act of desperation."

Optional royalty approach Opensea announced yesterday that they would be deactivating their royalty enforcement tool, the OpenSea Operator Filter, and making creator fees optional for new collections starting after August 31st. The platform says it is making this change to eliminate “ineffective and unilateral enforcement of NFT royalties” — without eliminating them completely. "This optional royalty approach will stop future applications that go far beyond collections," Cuban added. "Which is where the most money will be."